focus, focus ... and sleep

What a funny title for me to choose! I think of this word and its friends: discipline, faithful, obedient, purposeful. Ahhhhhk! oh, I feel a little weary - but also invited. Don't you want it?! Don't you want to plunge purposefully into today? I type fast - soon someone will wake and I'll be dipped in the day - no turning back.

Thank you for this dark morning alone - I love the bright of my light inside when the dark is like a closed curtain at all my windows. And the light creeps up outside so slowly that I hardly can see the line of snow on the dark railing or the shadowy fence-posts standing guard in our freezing white field. My coffee is gone and the muffins (yummy from Grandma's). My babe sleeps on - a miracle.

I am teaching Anna to sleep this week - trying to prepare her for 4 nights apart from her mama - for her benefit and my own mama's. What do you do when a baby not-your-own cries in the night for her mama? Oh, you surely cry, too. I cry just thinking of it. Job-of-mine, you better be worth this crying. But, I will be back - and I am praying, praying out of my greedy-for-warm-baby-touch heart that Anna will greet me with her soft pawing (soft when I trim those poky nails!) and insistent "more"-word. Yep, I am greedy for her.

Night 1, she wept and wept. I reminded her that her drink (ugh, cold and hard in the cup) was near, her baby doll close, a mound of hand-love-crafted blankets to roll into. She shouted her frustration, wept her lonely sorrow - we didn't start Monday well-rested. But after her surrender and a few hours of collapse - she welcomed me with her morning sweetness. "Eye" and "Nohn" (nose) and "honk" (pinch nose like her papa Forrest - passed down by her bigs) and "pat, pat" on her mama's back - always start the morning with a display of your favorite tricks.

Night 2, one early waking babe through my haze of sleep. The insistent jabbering turns from "mom, mom, mom" to up-on-tiptoes at the other end: "ruBEEE? ruBEE?" What? she is asking Ruby for mercy. I jump from my bed. "Have mercy! Mom won't help me, maybe my sister will. Where is that big sister, anyway?" (sleeping soundly on brothers' floor - far from the sleep experiment) Now, squeezing hugs across the crib rail. "Nyo, nyo", turn my little soft face away from that drink cup - I'm not thirsty, just hug me. I showed her the blankets, showed her the baby doll. "Time for sleeping, time for night-night. I love you." She shouted, flopped, flailed and I kept my focus, pulling the door softly behind me - just a sliver, momma-crack to peek. She burrowed and slept. Thank you God, that was much better than Night 1.

Focus - today we will do that little scoot that (all 5 squished and comfortable) bodies do on a couch - wriggle deeper into each other and the couch cushions - read together, pray together, focus together. While the snow comes and we thank both our Fathers (thank you for my lumberjack husband, Lord, who labors long to keep us warm) for this cozy place together.

Time to wake my babes. Thank You, for the grey sky morning, brightening in my window. I take it. How I love you, Lord, you give me all that I need and ever so much more.